Inspired by . . . Day 6: A JOYful Heart

 

This post is part of a 31 day series on JOY

You may access all the past days by clicking here.

 

 

For His anger endureth but a moment; in His favour is life:

weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Psalm 30:5

 

As some of you know I’m in the middle of reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. Confession: This book is making it hard to sleep at night. The tide of emotions that this story has spawned is overwhelming. Anxiety, fear, disbelief, conviction, empathy, compassion, horror.

Even more than the Apostle Paul, Corrie’s sister, Betise Ten Boom could be the poster child for JOY.

When referring to the hospital at Ravensbruck {the notorious women’s extermination camp}, Corrie noted, “[Betsie] was not repelled by the room as I was. To her it was simply a setting in which to talk about Jesus – as indeed was every place else.”

This is just one example of Betsie’s JOY-filled response to her circumstances. Circumstances that we cannot even begin to imagine. The women in these camps, indeed Corrie and Betsie themselves had been so mistreated that at one point in the narrative Corrie describes them in this way, “But we had become animals, incapable of plan or system.”

Can you imagine the impact that Betsie’s JOY had on those around her? The women were in awe. They were drawn to Betsie and the Light that was around, and within her.

 

 

All degrees of joy reside in the heart.

How can a Christian be full of happiness (if happiness depends on the things that happen)

when he is in a world where the devil is doing his best to twist souls away from God,

where people are tortured physically, where some are downtrodden

and do not get a chance? It would be the outcome of the most

miserable selfishness to be happy under such conditions.

But a joyful heart is never an insult,

and joy is never touched by external conditions. ~Oswald Chambers

 

JOY can stand in the face of evil.

As Believer’s we can have JOY in midst of the evils of our day,

just as Betsie had in hers.

 

Blessings,

Quotations taken from Biblical Psychology, © Discovery House Publishers

#write31days

 

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Inspired by . . . the cost

 

 Satan is so much more in

earnest than we are -

he buys up the

opportunity while we are

wondering

how much it will cost.

~ Amy Carmichael

 

 

Amy Carmichael didn’t waste time counting the cost. Neither did Corrie Ten Boom. I haven’t read Michelle DeRusha’s new book, 50 Women Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Heroines of the Faith, but I can pretty much guarantee both these women are in there. I can also pretty much guarantee the other 48 women that Michelle included in her book, didn’t waste their time counting the cost either.

But there is a cost.

And sometimes, it’s huge.

I’ve been reading The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom.

Be warned. This book reaches out, grabs on to every piece of you, and pulls you in.

“All of Haarlem seemed to know what we were up to. We knew we should stop the work, but how could we? Who would keep open the network of supplies and information on which the safety of hundreds depended? If a hideaway had to be abandoned, as happened all the time, who would coordinate the move to another address? We had to go on, but we knew that disaster could not be long in coming.”

“That night Father and Betsie and I prayed long after the others had gone to bed. We knew that in spite of daily mounting risks we had no choice but to move forward. This was evil’s hour: we could not run away from it. Perhaps only when human effort had done its best and failed, would God’s power alone be free to work.”

Excerpts from: Boom, Corrie Ten; Elizabeth Sherrill; John Sherrill (2006-01-01). The Hiding Place.  Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

 

This side of heaven, there will always be a cost for doing God’s will.

 

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own.

Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,

therefore the world hates you. (John 15:18-19)

 

Read what Ms. Ten Boom’s father said, the day after he was arrested, when given the offer to return home “{and not} cause any more trouble.”

“If I go home today,” he said evenly and clearly, “tomorrow I will open my door again to any man in need who knocks.”

Mr. Ten Boom died eight days later. Corrie scratched this on the wall of her cell: MARCH 9, 1944 Father. Released.

He was not a senile old man. He could say what he said with conviction because, “for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.” (2 Tim 1:12) God had proved His faithfulness time and again.

I don’t know about you, but one of Satan’s most effective wiles in my life is that of inaction.

Amy Carmichael’s quote convicts me. The Ten Boom’s give passion to that conviction.

I pray that when the knock sounds at my door,  that my response will be based on the invisible, rather than the visible.

 

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,

is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,

while we do not look at the things which are seen,

but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporary,

but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

 

Paul could say this, despite the beatings, the shipwrecks and the prison cells.

I know that Corrie Ten Boom believed the same.

Do we?

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!

 

Shalom,

 

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